


the unpayable debt i owed you

by sonofahurricane



Category: Neoscum (Podcast), Shadowrun
Genre: Angst, Art, Canon-Typical Drug Mention, Canon-Typical Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fanart, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, So much angst, fuck you gannon i'll stop making cuddling content when i DIE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-15 20:53:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16940523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonofahurricane/pseuds/sonofahurricane
Summary: Dak yawned again, then shook his head like he was trying to shake away cobwebs. “M’tired,” he said.“You’re tired?” Pox repeated back to him.Tech seemed to be about a step and a half behind. “But Dak,” he said slowly. “You like… have a sleep regulator. And you slept, right? We all slept at the last place.”“I know!’ Dak snapped, then instantly regretted it as Tech paled. “I know,” he repeated. “I don’t know what’s going on.”More than one thing about Dak Rambo is broken, and his friends are struggling to hold it all together.





	the unpayable debt i owed you

**Author's Note:**

> Every single time I write NeoScum fanfic, I have 8 million things to say, but instead I'll try to keep it simple:  
> 1) title taken from "Kettering" by The Antlers  
> 2) I started writing the first sections right before episode 32, though this was never really canon-compliant; time in NeoScum is always weird, though so don't @ me  
> 3) I know it's long I'm sorry they never shut up  
> 4) all the INCREDIBLE art is done by potatofuzz, who offered to illustrate it after they read it over for me; thank you so much Jaime, the art is seriously incredible  
> 5) Al and Miz Biz are Shadowrun OCs belonging to me and Jaime respectively, hit us up for more info if you want
> 
> Warnings include: canon-typical drug mention (no drug use despite the tag, I was just being careful), anxiety

Dak first noticed something was off when they were doing a night drive. They had finally had a few days of rest, and were back on the road again; even Dak had gotten his normal amount of sleep, and everyone else was now sleeping in the truck as the few and far-between lights rolled past them on the highway.

He had put on Sense and Sensibility and was muttering under his breath softly about how _rude_ Mr. Willoughby was being to Marianne, just rolling up with this other woman, when almost out of nowhere, he was hit with a _yawn_.

A _yawn_. Dak’s jaw popped as he closed his mouth, and when what just happened hit him, he looked at himself in the mirror, blinking blearily.

“What the hell?” he muttered. He shook his head fiercely, and went back to looking at the road. Some folks complained about driving as much as Dak did--they claimed it was boring, or they got tired of looking at the road. Dak loved looking at the road. It was always interesting to him, changing every few tenths of a mile, curving this way and that, the diving lane lines stopping and starting and stopping and starting and…

The wheels squealed as Dak drifted over onto the shoulder, the rumble strips shaking the entire cabin. “Mother _fucker_ ,” he hissed, veering back onto the road, listening as the trailer jostled behind him. What the hell was going on? He shook his head vigorously and focused back on the road, tuning back in to the audiobook that was still playing. Elinor really was such a good role model for Marianne, but Dak had such a soft spot for the younger Dashwood sister. He just wanted her to be safe and happy! She deserved it, deserved way better than Mr. Willoughby, but even then she deserved to be treated far better than Willoughby was currently doing.

"Willoughby you cad," Dak muttered under his breath, adjusting his hand on the wheel and leaning forward to crack his back. "Leave Marianne alone." Behind him, he could hear Tech snoring softly, and Dak smiled a little bit. How amazing was this, driving at night with his friends in the back, getting some Sense and Sensibility time in, the road under his tires and... and...

The rumble strips shook the truck again, and Dak snapped straight up, only to realize he had almost driven off the road. "Shit!" he shouted, and went to correct but overcorrected, steering the truck wildly towards the median between the different directions of the road. "Fuuuuuuck!" he bellowed, correcting back again to the other side of the road, rising from his seat as he slammed down on the break, all too aware of the way that his swerving was shaking Z in the shotgun seat, and sending Pox sliding around on the back bench. Xanadu's wheels squealed under his grip, and he noticed suddenly that his hands were shaking so hard he could hardly hold onto the wheel. He could smell burning rubber, and his eyes burned with--with what?? He couldn't think straight, could hardly breathe, he was just clinging to the wheel and hoping to god he didn't crash the truck and get his friends killed. He could hear the brakes squealing and he mentally apologized to Xanadu, out loud muttering "come on baby please, come on" as the truck veered and swerved and finally came to rest on the shoulder of the road, the engine hissing at him. Dak rapidly turned off the truck, the keys rattling in his still-shaking hands, and pressed his forehead against the steering wheel, his breath shaky as he inhaled and exhaled heavily, trying to get his heart to stop racing for just a goddamn second.

He could feel Z's eyes on him, the hacker's hands twitching as he tried to figure out what was wrong, if Dak was injured, if Dak was dying. Something in Dak's chest twinged, and he hauled himself back up off the wheel to glance over at Z, nodding gently to let him know that Dak was okay, wasn't dying--he didn't think. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. He curled and uncurled them into fists.

“What the hell was that?” Tech Wizard yelled, his voice rough with sleep. He was still slumped against the side of the truck, laying toe-to-toe across the back bench with Pox, who was just now emerging from the depths of her coat, blinking at Dak in the rearview mirror. Dak met her eyes, and though he tried to smile at her, but her expression told him she saw right through the smile. He thought about their conversation outside of Bug City, and he closed his eyes and exhaled again. His hands trembled against the fabric of his pants.

 

“Dak?” she asked quietly.

“Can’t stop shaking,” Dak said, shaking his head as he stared at his own hands, which were shaking visibly at this point.

“Dak, what the hell are you talking about? Did you take nitro again?” Zenith immediately grabbed Dak’s head and looked into his eyes, the ocular drone floating out of his head with a light that he flashed into Dak’s eyes. Dak blinked, pulled away and rubbed his eyes furiously with trembling hands he felt like he could barely control.

“Z, I didn’t take _nitro_ ,” he said, pulling away even more. “I don’t even keep that shit around. It’s--that’s fucked up.” His head was aching way more now, and he rubbed it carefully, avoiding the cut on his head still. “I just, I…” he trailed off, trying to find a way to articulate what was wrong, but his mind was cloudy and words were coming slowly. “Something’s wrong,” he finally muttered.

“Something’s _wrong_?” Z repeated, and he looked away from Dak, back at Pox and Tech.

“What’s wrong?’ Pox asked softly, eyeing Dak nervously.

As if his body could hear and process the question better than his brain, Dak _yawned_ again, then shook his head like he was trying to shake away cobwebs. “M’tired,” he said.

“You’re _tired_?” Pox repeated back to him.

Tech seemed to be about a step and a half behind. “But Dak,” he said slowly. “You like… have a sleep regulator. And you slept, right? We all slept at the last place.”

“I know!’ Dak snapped, then instantly regretted it as Tech paled. “I know,” he repeated. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

All three stared at him, and he could feel himself growing red. He should have an answer for this, but he couldn’t think straight. “It’s nothing,” he tried to back pedal. “It’s nothing. Sorry for scaring you. Let’s keep going.” He moved to turn the key in the ignition, but Z put his hand on Dak’s arm, and Pox reached her small arm out to do the same.

“Dak, you almost just crashed Xanadu,” Z said. “There’s no way we’re gonna let you keep driving. If you’re tired, something’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s _wrong_ ,” Dak said, but he didn’t turn the key over.

“Look, Dak, at the very least, you can’t drive Xanadu now. You’d crash her and smash her to bits. You’d kill all of us.”

“You’d never get Max back,” Pox said, her voice small.

Dak's face immediately reddened. "Well I'm damn well never gonna get Max back just standing here!" he shouted, and all three of the other shadowrunners flinched.

"Dak you're literally going to get us all killed," Pox tried again.

"Standing here while we're being pursued's gonna get us killed," he shot back. "Just give me a second to stretch my legs and we'll hit the road." He climbed out of the truck, paused as if he was stretching his hamstrings when really he was closing his eyes against the rush of blood from his head down to his feet. "Stay in the truck," he snapped, rubbing his heavy eyes with the back of his fist, hearing the others begin to climb out, Tech grunting softly as he climbed over the center console. Suddenly the world was spinning and his eyes were fluttering closed as he leaned back against the truck. "Get inna truck," he slurred, his voice fading off, and then jerked back to full consciousness as arms--Z's scrawny yet immensely stable, and Tech's soft ones--stabilized him.

"Dak," Z said through clenched teeth as the two lowered Dak to the ground. The trucker realized then that his legs were shaking violently under him and he had no idea when that had started happening. "You can't drive the truck. You gotta let one of us drive it somewhere, we gotta get you looked at."

Dak blinked slowly. "Can't," he said stiffly. "I'm--" Another huge yawn cut him off, and he leaned back slowly against the truck. "Just a minute," he said, eyes closed. "Just gimme a minute."

Even with his eyes closed, he could picture the expression on Zenith's face as he moved from Dak's side. He'd be shaking his head, based on his tone as he turned to the other two. "Tech, can you get Dak into the back seat of the truck? I'm gonna drive us somewhere, the closest place we can call civilization, and get this all figured out."

Z, driving Xanadu? There was absolutely no way in hell that was going to happen. All of Dak's exhaustion flooded away as he surged upwards, knocking Tech Wizard out of the way.

"Like hell you'll drive Xanadu!" he snarled, grabbing Z by the front of his shirt. "Over my dead body will I let you drive my goddamn truck!" Somewhere behind Z, Dak could sense Pox's small body trembling slightly, and he glanced up at her to realize she was scared. Tech, meanwhile, had stumbled clumsily and was now clambering to his feet from the grass of the highway shoulder, trying to put himself between Dak and Z.

"Dak, Dak, hey, calm down," Tech stuttered, his sweaty hands clawing at Dak's fingers, trying to peel them off of Z's shirt.

Z, to his credit, looked more tired than anything else. "Dak," he said, and there was something in the tone of his voice that made Dak's hands tremble, so he clenched his fists tighter. It sounded softer, like when Dak first met Zenith all those years ago, and thinking about that made Dak's throat close up briefly. "Dak you gotta let me drive the truck."

"No!" Dak shouted, squeezing his eyes tightly, shaking Z. "I'm not letting you drive my truck. No one drives my truck except me."

"You let me drive it when you were letting yourself get captured by Devil Grls," Zenith tried.

"That was different! They weren't going to let us pass unless they had me. I didn't want you to drive the truck anyway, I wanted Max to drive but he was doing something else I guess, some technomancer stuff."

"Dak," Z started again. " _Please_."

Dak was shaking again, his entire body this time, and he found that rather than holding Zenith up, he was instead practically clinging to his old friend, trying to stay upright himself. "I can't, Z. I can't," he mumbled, and then his body was sagging again. Tech was there for him again, moving to support as much of Dak's weight as he could.

"Dak," Pox said in a small voice. "If you're tired, then just sleep, maybe? We can let you rest for a few hours, and you'll be alright, right?" Through his slitted eyes, he could see Pox look nervously between Zenith and himself, like she needed confirmation from one or both of them that this was acceptable.

Z, on the other hand, was looking at no one in particular, staring off into some middle distance only he could see. "Yeah," he said finally, his voice rougher than Dak expected. "We could do that for a couple of hours."

"...okay," Dak responded, meek in spite of himself. "I'll just--I'll lay down over here by the truck. Get some fresh air, too." With Tech's help, he maneuvered himself back next to Xanadu and closed his eyes, breathing as deeply as he could manage.

It didn't work. They'd been stopped for four hours and Dak's hands were still shaking. He burst upright about every twenty or so minutes, looking around wildly, his eyes bloodshot and bleary and Tech would run over to try to soothe him and lay him back down. Zenith could feel himself starting to grind his teeth as he watched Dak try so hard to relax, his entire body twitching with effort.

"I know what it is," he said at hour 4.25, the three other Shadowrunners reconvening after Dak had nearly hit Tech for moving too close to the driver's side of the truck. "I know what's wrong with him."

"You know what's wrong with him? How the hell do you know?" Tech asked, rubbing his arm where Dak's punch aimed for his face had missed.

"And why did you wait until now to tell us?" Pox hissed. "If you know, let's just fix it and get back on the road."

"It's not that easy," Zenith shot back. "It's his adrenaline modifier. Something must have happened to it when he got hit in the head--it's short circuiting or busted or something. It's not working any more.

“Can it do that?” Pox asked, looking flabbergasted at Dak’s muttering, twitching form. “Just stop working like that?”

“I mean, maybe! Like antidepressants, you know? Sometimes it just cuts you off and BAM, super depression, back again.” Tech Wizard seemed not to notice the looks of confusion and concern from Pox and Zenith both.

“No, this is different,” Z said. “It’s done this before, once, when Dak and I first met. He’d hit his head, and it jostled the sleep regulator out of place. Sent him all out of whack, he was asleep for five days.”

“So how did you do it?” Tech asked. “If it happened before, we can do it again.”

Zenith shook his head. “I don’t think it’s that easy. Last time it worked after he got hit in the head again, hard—fell asleep at the wheel and got thrown through the windshield head-first into a tree. It fractured his skull. I don’t think we can apply that same amount of force again safely.”

“So what are we supposed to _do_ ?” Pox asked, chewing nervously on the lollipop stick. “Just leave him like this? He doesn’t seem to be _sleeping_.”

Zenith shook his head. “He’s fighting it, or there’s some kind of circuit that’s being hit where he’s not getting enough to keep him awake but he can’t sleep either. I can’t tell, I’m not a doctor.” He rubbed his ocular drone with the heel of his hand, wincing. “We gotta get out of here,” he muttered. “We need to find a street doc or someone else who can treat him, and we gotta try to get him to sleep in the meantime.”

Tech chewed his lip nervously. “Well, we can try to do that, while you look someone up? Can you make a call or something with our gear?”

Z ran a hand through his hair. “I mean, I can try, but we’re out here in the middle of nowhere, so the odds aren’t great. We’d be better off driving somewhere--hell, maybe back to Denver, even.”

“Max?” Dak’s voice croaked out. His hands were still shaking violently enough that it looked like most of his body was moving. “Max?”

“Dak, Max is in Denver,” Z said, snapped, really, and Pox and Tech both glanced at him nervously. He was the one who had dealt with this before, he had the longest history with Dak out of the entire crew, and he was also the one with access to the matrix most immediately. He caught their glances and shook his head. “Stop looking at me like that,” he grumbled. “Go get him to lie down at least.”

Tech turned quickly and hurried back to Dak’s side. “Dak, buddy,” he started to soothe.

Pox paused a moment, looked at the creases in Zenith’s forehead. “Z, are you okay?” she whispered.

Z looked at his feet, nodded vigourously. “Yeah. Yeah, go to Dak. I just gotta figure a way to get a hold of a street doc in the middle of nowhere, with a truck he won’t let anyone _drive_.”

Pox reached out and put a hand on his arm gently. “It’s not your fault,” she reminded him gently. “We’re gonna get help, and Dak’s gonna be okay.”

Z nodded again, almost brusquely, still not meeting her eyes, and swiped the back of his hand against his good eye. “He’s gonna be okay,” he repeated, his voice hoarse, then he sighed deeply. “I’m gonna put out a call for help,” he said. “We might get more fucked than we already are, but I don’t know that we have more options. Then maybe I can try Dak’s radio--hack in and amplify the signal or something, I don’t know. We gotta get him to sleep in the meantime, though.”

Pox nodded, chewing on her lip in addition to the lollipop stick. She looked over to where Tech was trying to gently cradle Dak between his legs, the wizard’s arms straining against the trucker as Dak flailed. “The compartments!” she said suddenly, and Z looked at her as she fled back to the truck.

“Compartments?” he asked, following her into the truck, only to watch her desperately fight with one of the compartments inside Xanadu. Whatever was in this one, it seemed to have gotten the hatch solidly stuck.

Pox nodded. “And you can find help and Tech can keep Dak still!” she announced excitedly.  

"Yeah," Z agreed. "Or at least we can keep trying."

About all they did was try. Not that trying wasn't a lot and didn't keep them fairly occupied--Z just couldn't seem to reach anyone in the outside world without compromising their position, which he didn't dare do, and while he knew he could have gotten a better signal, reached someone better, if they were a few more miles out of these woods or where ever the hell they were, he would be able to reach someone, _anyone_ , who could help Dak and fix this, he didn't dare try to convince the trucker that he needed to be allowed to drive Xanadu. Not with the way Dak kept fighting Tech in his bursts of energy, straining against the wizard's hold.

Zenith couldn't help but be impressed at Tech's strength, or maybe it was just determination. Every time Dak tried to take a swing at him, Tech managed to just pin Dak's arms and hold on as the trucker flailed and kicked. Zenith could see it was taking its toll, though--every time it happened, Tech looked like he wanted to cry, and as the sun hit noon on the day (had they really been stopped for that long?) and Dak finally collapsed again from struggling for nearly ten minutes, Tech pressed his face into Dak's shoulder and shook himself, wiping his eyes on Dak's vest and then pressing his lips gently against Dak's temple like he wasn't sure he could touch the trucker without the trucker shattering apart.

Pox, for her part, was doing her damndest to go through the contents of the truck. When Z check in on her, all the compartments in the cabin of the truck were open, little baggies strewn across the floor. Some had snacks in them, Fritos and Bugles and stuff like that, some were unidentifiable powders, some had trash (clementine peels and other food wrappers) and some were just... empty bags, mashed up from being in compartments and now laying on the ground. Pox was muttering to herself as she yanked at the handle of a particularly sticky-looking compartment, her hair wild, and she let out a frustrated groan as she swiped it out of her face again. "Dammit!" she muttered, slapping her hand against the compartment.

"Anything I can do?" Z asked, poking his head farther into the cabin so she could see him. He was too quiet again, though, because she jumped, and he flushed. "Sorry. I just thought you could use an extra pair of hands in here."

She shook her head. "I just can't get this damn thing open," she gestured weakly. "Any luck on getting anyone out here to help us?"

Z shook his head, climbing into the cabin after her so he could get a look at what the problem was. "Nothing that wouldn't fully compromise us. Honestly, even then I'd do something, your dad could fly in here and I'd ask for help at this point, but..." He trailed off, watched her shudder slightly at the reference to her father--father who wanted her _dead_ , good going on that one, Z--and shook his head. "Sorry," he said. "I wouldn't do that."

"Maybe you should," she said softly. "Trade my life for Dak's."

Z looked at her. Her hair was around her face again, forming a curtain so he couldn't see her eyes. "No!" he said forcefully. "I wouldn't do that, and even if I did, Dak would kill me. _If_ your father helped, which, no offense, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would. You..." Z trailed off, not sure how to go about saying this--these kinds of pep talks were normally Dak's territory, but Dak was half-asleep outside, and Z had to say _something_. "You belong with us," Z said finally. "It's not about your life or Dak's. It's about how we keep all of us together and alive."

Pox sniffed, and Z realized she had been crying for a moment, or at least had teared up, as she answered thickly. "Thanks, Z," she said.

"Of course," he said. "We're all just--it's stressful, you know? Dak's freaking out and normally he's the one who... well. Doesn't keep us calm, I guess, or really lead us in a way that makes any sense. But it's still not good. It's stressful, and we're all stressed out."

Pox laughed at that, swiping her hair out of her eyes. "Yeah," she agreed. "He's crazy, but he's--we're the NeoScum."

"We are. Now come on," Z pulled his extra hair tie off his wrist, and offered it to her. "For your hair," he clarified when she looked at him.

"I know what it's for," she told him with a laugh. "It just usually takes more than one to hold all my hair back."

"Oh," Z responded, then looked around on the floor. “He usually--there.” He grabbed a baggie on the floor that was full of more hair ties. "I, uh, usually only need one. Dak used to use more, but he hasn’t done it in a while."

"Why'd he stop?" Pox asked as she grabbed a fistful of hair ties and started methodically tying her hair back.

"I dunno. I never asked him. It was just a Dak thing, you know? Sometimes he'd tie his hair with multiple ties and sometimes he wouldn't. I think he stopped doing it when he moved to Chicago."

"My sister and I, we used to braid each other's hair," Pox started, but Z noticed her sag visibly, her face drawn now. He put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"We'll get her out of there," Z said. "I promise."

Pox put her hand over his, ran her thumb over his knuckles, and looked up into his face, her eyes shining. "And we'll find out where you come from," she said back.

From outside the truck, they could hear Dak start yelling again, and Tech Wizard's borderline-desperate calls for Dak to calm down, please Dak just calm down, it's okay, it's okay, and Pox squeezed Z's hand with hers. "And we'll fix Dak," she said softly.

Z nodded. "We'll find a way," he said.

But they couldn't. Even when Z managed to get the sticky compartment open, it was just more petroleum jelly that spilled out over their eager hands. Pox did start crying again then, and Z had to go outside the truck and pace for a while. Tech was looking absolutely exhausted, and though they started a cursory search of the trailer, their hearts were no longer in it. "We're never going to find anything," Pox whimpered softly. Some of her hair had escaped the hair ties she was using to hold it back, and it was falling in her eyes again. Her face was red from exertion, and she was sweaty, swiping her hands at her face.

"We'll find something," Z tried to protest, but he couldn't argue with her really in that moment. For all that Dak kept who knew how many drugs in the truck, there was nothing there that they could identify.

"He's gonna die," she moaned softly, and Z shushed her a little more forcefully than he intended to, because she looked at him nervously.

"You can't just say that kind of thing where Tech could hear you," he explained as quietly as he could. "I don't know if you've looked outside at him, but he's barely holding on. This is killing him more than I think it's killing _Dak_ , honestly. You know how much Dak means to him."

Pox glanced around at where Tech was practically clinging to Dak at this point, his face buried fully in the trucker's trembling shoulders, rubbing his hands up and down Dak's arms. "But what are we supposed to _do_?" she whispered. "You can't contact anyone, and we haven't found anything. And how much longer can Dak take this, anyway? The last time this happened, how long did it last?"

Z shook his head. "I don't know, like a week maybe? But that was different--it wasn't that he couldn't sleep, it was more like he couldn't stay awake. I have no idea how long he can last like this." He looked over at Dak, whose shaking was becoming more pronounced as Tech Wizard clenched his teeth and wiped his eyes on Dak's ripped sleeves. He noticed then that Pox's shoulders were shaking, and then that she was crying. Zenith stood there for a moment, not totally sure what to do, not sure what the right course of action was, before he tentatively put his arm around her shoulder, drawing her in close to him. "We'll figure something out," he told her softly. "But we gotta sleep now--if we're as tired as Dak, there's no way we're going to help him."

"Sleep?" Pox asked, rubbing her eyes. "Out here? But how are we supposed to do that, it's not protected or anything, and normally Dak would--he'd watch out for us," and here she was tearing up again.

Zenith shrugged. "We'll just do what you do when you *don't* have someone who has an adrenaline modulator in your group."

"What's that?" Pox asked, and Z remembered suddenly that before she met them, she had been on her own--that she hadn't run with a team before them. Zenith didn't run with crews often, sure, but he'd been a part of teams once or twice that didn't involve Dak. Maybe only once or twice. It would be fine.

"You keep watch in shifts," he told her, trying to make it sound more appealing and safe than maybe it was in reality, when you were three people, only one of whom really had a ton of experience with shadowrunning (and who usually tried to avoid these types of situations if he could.) "You and Tech sleep, and I'll take the first shift. We'll sleep in the cabin, and I'll--I don't know. I'll watch Dak and... try to get him to sleep, I guess. If anything happens, anybody stops or it looks like there's trouble, I'll wake you all up and we'll--get out of here somehow, I guess."

"And how are you going to do that if we can't drive Xanadu?" she asked softly, and Z couldn't tell from her tone if it was a genuine question or if she was calling him on his bullshit.

Z sighed. He hadn't thought that far head, honestly. "I guess we have to leave it behind," he said lamely. "Run off into the woods for a bit. It could be here when we come back! But we can't have Dak having a full freak out in the middle of another kind of crisis, so..."

"You know he'll kill you if anything happens to the truck," she said softly.

"Yeah, well..." Z trailed off, looked back at Dak's form as he sank back into Tech's arms. "He'll have to live long enough to do that." He grimaced at how dark he sounded, then clapped Pox awkwardly on the shoulder. "Come on," he said. "You gotta get some sleep, and we gotta let Tech crash for a while."

It took more coaxing than Z might have guessed to get Tech to let go of Dak. At first, he wasn't sure Tech had heard him, then he assumed something had happened to *Tech*--that he was sick, or had been hurt by Dak, or something else. The wizard had been slow to respond, looking up blankly at Zenith when the decker gestured to him.

"What?" he asked slowly, and Z knew that he couldn't ask Tech to do this for much longer without rest. He'd been grappling with Dak literally all day, and somehow he'd managed to hold on--no mean feat, given how strong Zenith knew Dak was. It was almost sad, asking him to give up now.

That's what it was, Zenith finally realized, when Tech seemed to mishear him for the third time. It was a refusal to give up on Dak. Of course Tech would never let go of Dak when Dak was like this--Dak was Tech's idol, Tech needed to be able to hold onto him, to--Z didn't know, feel his strength maybe. He had no clue, couldn't begin to guess what had happened between Tech and Dak during their time in Chicago. Didn't want to guess, really, knowing Dak and knowing the trouble he'd get into if left to his own devices, much less with a young impressionable man who idolized him.

Z exhaled heavily, knelt next to Tech and started to physically remove the wizard's arms from around Dak. Tech's arms were quivering, but he still tried to tighten around Dak, to pull the mostly-unconscious trucker away from Zenith's grasp. "I'm okay, I can hold onto him," he kept insisting, and Z squeezed his eyes shut.

"Tech, you've been doing this all day. You need rest, okay? You and Pox are going to sleep for a while, and I'm gonna keep watch over you all. It'll be okay--he's not gonna go anywhere."

"I'm o _kay_ ," Tech insisted again, and Z seriously considered shocking Tech just so he'd pass out--it would be a bad idea, probably, and Dak would get shocked again and that would do who knew what to the adrenaline modulator, but it didn't matter in the end, because Pox was leaning in, putting her small hand on Tech's shoulder and muttering softly to him.

"Tech," she whispered, and Z could feel Tech's arms relax on their own. "Z can take care of him. He's known Dak longer than any of us--he'll keep Dak safe, just long enough for you to get some rest."

Tech glanced from her face down to Dak's, then up to Z's, his eyes wide with exhaustion and some mix of mistrust that hurt Zenith's chest and made him want to turn and walk away from the whole thing. But Tech was tired, exhausted, even--they all were. So he adjusted Dak's weight so the trucker could be held by the two of them, and, grunting, he climbed slowly to his feet, Z doing his best to take on Dak's weight and Pox leaning into Tech to support him.

"We'll all be in the truck," Z said, but he couldn't seem to get any real reaction out of Tech now that the wizard had been convinced to rest. They somehow managed to get all four of them back into the cabin--hauling Dak's now-twitching form across the steering wheel had fully set off the horn, but the sound had only made them move all the more quickly and carefully after they had frozen and all hold their breaths. Even Dak's labored breathing seemed to stop, but nothing came out of the woods, no one stormed up the road, so they just moved Dak so that Z could hold onto him while he shook.

Tech seemed to fall asleep almost instantly, which tracked, given the amount of energy he had spent and also just the way that Tech fell asleep normally. Pox, however, seemed loathe to really fall asleep, and Z kept catching her fighting it, her head drooping only to jerk up suddenly, red-rimmed eyes peering over the collar of her coat.

"Pox," Z whispered. "Go to sleep. We'll be fine. I'll wake you up in a few hours."

"I can't sleep," she whimpered softly. "What if he--what if you--"

Z's chest twisted again, and he wrapped his arms gently around Dak's now-limp form. "I can take care of us," he told her softly. "Like you said. He'll be okay. Go to sleep."

He could see her processing his words, rolling them around in her head. "You promise he'll be okay?" she whispered again.

"I promise," he responded, and then gently squeezed Dak's arm like it was hers. "Go to sleep."

She didn't relax instantly, but she did finally turn away, curling her body into a small ball inside her coat, pressing her face against the back of the seat. Zenith finally felt like he could relax too. Dak was still in his arms, though his eyes were open and his breathing was more gasps than the deep soft breaths of sleep. They had taken his trucker's hat off, and Z had his body positioned between his legs,  Dak's head resting against his thigh.

The truck cabin was quiet except for Dak's ragged breaths and Tech's occasional snort. Pox slept like the dead, always had. Usually Dak did too, when he was actually sleeping. Z exhaled and put one hand on Dak's shoulder, the other one stiffly leaning against the door of the truck, positioned so he could get his pistols out as quickly as possible and shoot at any oncoming dangers. It was so quiet, almost too quiet, and Z could feel his ears buzzing as he squinted out into the darkness of the road ahead of them. The cold of the evening hadn't set in yet, but he wasn't warm, even with Dak's body resting against him.

He just had to keep them alive for a couple of hours. There was nothing that said he couldn't do that, that would suggest his shift would come with anything but quiet and darkness. And yet, he felt more on edge than he could remember, except maybe those early days with Dak. What he could remember of those days, at least--even that time was choppy for him, in and out. This position wasn't new to him, though--cradling Dak in his lap, his pistols at the ready, waiting for whatever danger Dak had gotten them into to come out and try to kill them already. Z grimaced, shifted Dak's body a little as the tremors started up again, squeezed Dak's shoulder.

"Z?" Dak's voice cut through the darkness.

"Shh, yeah, Dak, it's me. Shh. The others are sleeping," he whispered back.

"You're not sleeping?" Dak's voice rumbled even in whisper, and Z could feel it against his skin. The decker shook his head in the dark--Dak could see it, maybe, but he was also shaking and Z had frankly no idea what his grasp on reality looked like with the adrenaline modifier fucked to hell.

"We're taking watch. We had to--we're gonna get you help soon, but we had to sleep."

The shaking against his body got more intense, and Z again adjusted Dak's body so he'd make as little noise as possible, though the decker could swear he could hear Dak's teeth clattering against one another in his mouth, and he winced.

"They're--the kids, they're okay?" Dak could hardly get the words out around the shaking, his head starting to jerk violently now.

The kids? Z bit his tongue from pointing out that Tech was older than him, that Z had been a literal kid when they first met. That wasn't important right now. "Tech and Pox are okay. They're asleep, in the back seat. They're okay."

Dak strained to nod carefully against the tremors. "You gotta take care of them," he said tightly, and Z could have rolled his eyes if his voice wasn't so damn serious.

"Hey, don't talk like that," Z said, rubbing Dak's shoulder like it was going to help at all. "We take care of each other. You too."

Dak chuckled, the laughter rapidly turning into a wince and then a whine as the shakes escalated. Z leaned forward to put as much of his weight on Dak's body as he could, trying to keep the trucker from thrashing into anything too hard. It seemed to last hours--he couldn't believe he had made Tech do this for so long. That wasn't fair. Tomorrow they'd do it in shifts too, Z could hold onto Dak while Tech and Pox searched the truck...

It felt like hours, Dak shaking so hard Z could feel his own teeth clacking against one another, even as he set his jaw, but finally the trucker's shaking seemed to subside--slowly, slowly, until Z was just laying across Dak's still body, pressing down against it, mind racing as he tried to figure out if there was a safe way to put out a call for help, going over the network he had constructed again and again and again. They could call Lala with Tech's phone, maybe, but that didn't solve the problem of being stuck, and Z wasn't sure Lala could send help anyway, nor was he sure she would since it was Tech who was in trouble this time...

"You're thinking too hard, kid," Dak mumbled, his voice muffled against Z's torso. "I can feel it."

Z eased up off of Dak, adjusting his legs so they didn't fall asleep from Dak's weight against them. "You can't feel it, Dak," he shot back, and he knew what Dak was doing--drawing him back into an old conversation they'd been having since Z was a kid, driving down the highway toward Seattle, Dak's head bleeding, eyes practically crossed from a concussion.

"Sure can. Felt the whirring right there against my chest. You're practically overheating, you're thinkin so hard."

He knew exactly what Dak was doing, but he still smiled, rubbed Dak's shoulder a little bit. "You can't. My brain's not like an old-timey computer. It's not even really like a regular computer--I have a normal brain, it's just hooked up to the matrix."

"When you were a kid, you used to believe me," Dak said suddenly, and Z felt his throat briefly clench up at the acknowledgement of their first weeks together.

"No I didn't," he choked out. "I barely even knew what was happening."

"You did," Dak said insisted. "Your eyes got all round when I told you, then you got this look like you were trying to think of nothing so I wouldn't know."

"You were bleeding profusely from the head for most of the time I first met you," he shot back. "And I--was a kid. I don't even remember what I was thinking."

"You believed me," Dak said, and Z could see his eyes slowly blink like maybe he was finally getting tired, though his frame was still shaking slightly, just moments of trembling.

"I didn't," Z repeated, then put a hand on Dak's head, being careful not to touch anything that was injured. "You should get some rest, Dak."

"I've been trying all day," the trucker mumbled, but he did close his eyes. There were a few moments of silence, the buzz of an immense number of bugs outside, then, once more: "You gotta take care of them."

Z bit his lip, tried not to sigh too heavily. "I will," he told Dak softly. "Get some rest."

The hours crawled by and ticked by and Z could feel the exhaustion of the day starting to settle in against his shoulders, crawling and curling around his neck. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly several times to try to keep it at bay, then opened them back up and peered into the darkness of the forest, which swallowed up his vision probably a hundred yards away.

He kept thinking he saw a flash of light, blinking rapidly to make sure he was right--but he wasn't, every time he wasn't. Dak trembled in his lap, Tech snored softly, and Z slowly sank against the door of the truck, letting one hand come to rest against Dak's forehead.

His comm buzzed--once, twice--to let him know his shift was over, and he jerked rapidly, his spine straight like he'd been caught sleeping even though he had been awake the entire time. Awake, just. More relaxed than maybe he ought to have been. It felt too familiar. Z shook his head as if to shake away the sense memories of Dak bleeding out in his lap, Dak asleep against the wheel, Dak's eyes lolling back in his head, Z's hands, smaller, pale in the moonlight, trying to shake him.

"No," Z breathed, and started to extract himself from underneath Dak's weight. He climbed over the middle console and gently touched Pox on the shoulder, tensing as she jerked awake and grabbed him by the arm with a small knife in her other hand, brandishing it at his throat before she came fully back to herself.

"Sorry," she whispered to him, releasing his arm and slipping the knife back into one of her pockets.

Z shook his head. "You're okay," he offered. "I just figured we'd let Tech sleep more, and you could take a shift?"

"Yeah." Pox nodded, peering over Z's shoulder to look at Dak. "How is he?"

Z sighed and looked back as well at Dak's prone form, then shrugged. "The same, mostly," he said. "He's--it's a little weird, when he's like this. I mean. He's just a little weird when--"

"He's just a little weird," Pox said, humor and sleep making her voice thick, and Z chuckled.

"All you have to do is hold onto him when he shakes, tell him to sleep, and keep an eye out," he said instead of trying to explain more. Hell, maybe it wouldn't matter for her--she certainly didn't have the ghost of 6 years hanging over her head to make this weirder than it already was. "I didn't see anything, but if there's a problem--well. I'm not a heavy sleeper."

She nodded. "It'll be okay," she said. "You need to sleep, too."

"I know." Carefully, so they wouldn't disturb Tech, they swapped places. Pox reached into the footwell and managed to produce an itchy-looking blanket, which she carefully lay over Z's body, smoothing over his shoulders. Z took a position similar to hers, face pressed up against the back of the seat, inhaling the weird-yet-not-repulsive scent of Xanadu, his legs almost instantly tangling up with Tech's. They weren't all as small as Pox.

"Sweet dreams," she told him, and Z murmured in response, the tension in his neck and shoulders finally draining away as he let himself sleep.

Pox watched Z physically relax, loosen like he was made of liquid, and then moved carefully to pull up the sheet Tech had been using as a loose blanket further up his body. Tech grunted in his sleep and turned toward her, but remained fully asleep, his soft snores filling the cabin. Pox smiled a little at Tech's openness, his body sprawled out, his face relaxed, and then she clambered back up to the front of the truck. She could see where Zenith's body had been, where he'd shifted Dak's body to go back and wake her. She chewed her lip for a moment, tried to figure out if she should try the same position, when the shaking started again, moving from slight trembling to full body convulsions faster than she could really account for. It rattled the seats, and she hissed, climbing down and pulling Dak's body to her, wrapping her arms around his shoulders to try to lessen the noise.

"Shh, shh, shh," she hissed, trying to angle Dak's legs so they hung off the seats, hoping the diagonal would make less noise than his boots smashing against the side of the truck. Why were his shoes still on? She was going to have to fix that as soon as he went still again, but for now all she could do was hold on, clenching her teeth, wrapping her arms as tightly as she could. "Come on Dak, come on," she thought, willing the trucker to just be still for a second so she could get his boots off, figure out a better way to make him comfortable, do anything that would make this easier for them both.

The episode lasted what seemed like forever to Pox, and in her position she could hear Dak's teeth clattering against one another. She prayed he didn't bite his tongue, and remembered suddenly that maybe she should just let him be instead of holding on--that's what you were supposed to do with people who were having seizures, right? She closed her eyes and tried to remember, but this wasn't just a regular seizure, and they had no real safe place to put him, so she just held on, counting her own breaths as a way to pass the time and try to stay calm. On seventy-fifth exhale, she could feel the tremors start to dissipate, and on her hundred and fifteenth inhale, he went limp entirely in her arms. She raised her head to realize her eyes were full of tears, and she wiped them furiously with the back of her hand. She wasn't even sure what was upsetting her about the whole thing, just that he was shaking and she couldn't stop it and the truck wouldn't start and she was scared. She was scared of losing him, after they'd come all this way together, and she exhaled--how weird to have that be the loudest noise in the truck, after bombs and guns followed them everywhere they went. She shook her head like an Etch-a-Sketch, as if that would help her clear her thoughts, and carefully lowered him back down to the seat, wiping some sweat from his forehead and then wiping her hand on his shirt.

She climbed over his body, pausing while above him to make sure he was still breathing--she could hear it over the soft whistle of Tech's snores, and yes, his chest was rising and falling, moving his shirt so slightly that she might have missed it if she hadn't looked so carefully. Satisfied, she moved down into the footwell near his feet, prying his boots off and dropping them next to her before climbing back across him to the back seat, where she managed to dig up the softest blanket she could find for him, then a shredded up, bloody sheet--could they stop somewhere and do laundry, she wondered faintly, as she began to wad up old hotel towels that still smelled faintly damp even if she was sure they were dry now. The towels she put gently around the seat belt buckles and between Dak's head and the door, the soft blanket she tucked around his head especially, letting it drape over his bare arms. Finally she covered him with the bloodstained sheet, smoothing its crusty creases with her hand. She smiled softly, looking down at him from her new perch on top of the middle console, mostly supporting herself on her arms against the pilot seats as she looked out at the dark of the road.

The quiet was no fun to sit in, and she found her attention wandering instead to counting Dak's breaths, to timing them against the whistle of Tech's breathing, to straining to hear any sound from Zenith at all--she knew he made almost no sound when he slept, and in part she envied him for it, but right now all she really wanted was to hear him and know he was there without having to constantly look behind her and check. The silence of the outside--which, of course, wasn't really silence, because she could hear bugs and birds and all matter of weird scary night creatures that she couldn't account for--made her think of her time before she had met these three weirdos, when she was all by herself in a strange landscape, hiding in alleyways and sleeping with her head poking out of her tent. No one else to keep watch over her, she thought with a pang, but also no one else to watch out for. No one else to worry about, to fear they'd be killed because of her father, because she couldn't save her sister. Her stomach twisted and she felt herself tearing up again, but instead of wiping them away, she just sat, her vision blurry as she looked out into the darkness. This was her fault--if she wasn't with them, none of this would have happened. Tech wouldn't have been nearly killed, Dak wouldn't have gotten hit on the head and had his adrenaline modulator messed up, and Z... well, she didn't know exactly what might be different for Z, but maybe he wouldn't have gotten caught up in this mess, wouldn't have had to come up with a plan for all of them, wouldn't have had to be responsible for all their comms. She sniffled, almost startling herself in the dark, and then whispered quietly to the body underneath her.

"I'm sorry, Dak," she mumbled. "I'm so sorry."

"What are you sorry for, kitten?" She nearly jumped out of her skin at  hearing his response, and the nickname--was it a nickname? He'd never called her that before--made her wonder for a moment if he was hallucinating, but the words she had to say to him were heavy on her tongue, and she had to get them out.

"I'm sorry for--sorry for agreeing to join your group," she whispered, then sniffed again as the urge to cry grew more and more unbearable. "I'm sorry for putting you all in danger. I didn't want--I want to protect you. I wanted to protect you, but being with you--me being with you puts you all in so much more danger. You wouldn't have been hurt if I had left. Tech wouldn't have nearly died. I'm--I'm too dangerous to be around." She sniffled and shook her head, like that was going to make the tears go away.

"Oh, Pox," Dak mumbled, and he raised a trembling hand up to her. She took his big hand in both of her own, squeezed it lightly, and let him rest it against the side of her face, his fingers curling around the back of her skull. "This is just what being a shadowrunner is. Don't let your dad get into your head like that--I know, it's not easy, but if you think you made all our problems, I gotta tell you, I've been almost killed more times before you were born than maybe you'll ever know. When you're on the road--when you're like me on the road--things happen. You get into rough situations. If anything--" he cut himself off as a full-body tremor ran through his body, his fingers curling roughly in Pox's hair before he realized what he was doing and let go. Pox caught his hand as it withdrew and squeezed it as the shakes got worse, rose in violence until Dak's body was almost throwing himself off the seat, but Pox held onto his hand even as his arm jerked against her grip and she was afraid of hurting him by not letting go. She couldn't let go though, couldn't let go of him as he trembled and jerked underneath her, tears flooding her eyes as she cried silently about all of it--about her sister, about her father, about Dak and Tech and even Z, all of it.

Dak's body finally seemed to relent, and he stilled, his breath heavy in the darkness of the truck cabin, Pox still holding his hand tightly, giving it careful squeezes every so often just to let him know she was there, even though if he opened his eyes he could see her. "If anything," he continued, his voice rough with effort, "I should apologize to you for all the danger I've put you all in. It's--it's not safe, being around me. Never has been. So just--just know, it's okay. You're okay. We're the NeoScum; we're all on the road for a reason, and it's never one that keeps you or me safe. But we gotta stick together, right? Otherwise we'd be in more danger, if we were separate. Tech would be dead if you weren't here, and you'd be dead if he wasn't. And Z..." he trailed off, chuckled darkly. "Well, Z would probably be alright. He's always been pretty okay on his own, making his own way. But you're good for him anyway. He's--he's grown, with  you. He's changing, and it's good. So we're all--you're all better, with each other."

Pox chewed her lip, looked anxiously down at Dak. "And you're--you're better with us too, right? We're better with you."

Something passed over Dak's face, and his head twitched, though whether it was a tremor or he was shaking his head, Pox genuinely couldn't say. And then his cat eyes flashed at her in the dark, and he grinned toothily. "I'm Daaaaak Rambo," he told her. "I'm always good."

Pox wanted to push at it, because she knew--she knew Dak hurt, and she needed to hear him say that they were good for him too. But she didn't know how, not like this, when it felt like so much hung in the balance, when she felt so helpless she could scream. "Dak," she started to say, and he looked up at her, his eyes searching her face. "We need you. We--we love you."

"And I love all of you," he responded easily, sounding for almost the first time since they'd left Denver like the Dak Rambo she had first met all only a few weeks ago. "And you're okay. No need to be sorry for anything, Pox. You haven't done anything wrong, besides probably steal some stuff, and the rat thing is maybe a little, well, unorthodox, and there have been some people--I mean, we only kill bad guys right, so that really is more of a public service than a crime..."

She almost started crying again, but laughed softly instead, giving his hand one final squeeze before carefully laying it against his stomach. "Try to sleep," she told him, and he grunted.

"Been trying to sleep all day," he told her. "Not having much success."

"I know," she told him softly. "But maybe if you close your eyes, I'll sing you a lullaby, and that will work." Dak smiled but did close his eyes, and she sang to him softly, a load of just nonsense words that came to her, her body gently rocking on the middle console as the minutes ticked by.

Tech woke up to Pox's face right up in his, her tiny hands wrapped around his shoulders. She looked tired--somewhere beyond tired, and he worried, for a moment. They had finally gotten some rest, sure, but they hadn't gotten enough rest really to justify the kind of toll they were putting on their bodies now. It was exhausting, worrying about Dak--Tech knew that, he spent--well.

"Your turn," she said simply, the smile sad on her lips, her eyes trying to look supportive, trying to make it look easy, but Tech knew it wasn't, it wasn't easy, he'd held Dak for what, close to twelve hours, maybe more, who fucking knew, but Pox needed rest because she had spent that entire time working on trying to find a way to fix it all. Tech nodded at her quietly, then carefully picked her up in his arms and swiveled around, putting her in the seat where he had been, and offering her the sheet he had been using to cover himself. She took it with another sad smile, pulled it up to her shoulders, and then burrowed into her coat like always. Soon the only thing he could see of her was her hair, and though he listened for her breathing, the cabin was practically silent except for the sounds of Dak shifting ever so slightly against the seats.  

Tech stretched as best he could given the tight space, his neck cracking, and he grunted as everything tried to align itself back into place, before climbing over the middle console, doing his best to find room to study Dak before he got right up into Dak's situation. He wondered faintly why they hadn't tried to put Dak in the loft above the cabin, where Max had spent many an hour playing Wizard Whack-Off World, and then he thought about trying to haul Dak's mostly non-functioning body up there, and what they might find--and if Dak wanted to go--Tech shook his head, and pressed his body against the dash to get a better look at Dak.

It wasn't as if Tech didn't spend a lot of time looking at Dak already--looking to him, maybe, though sure, he looked at him. Why wouldn't he? Dak was a good looking man, they all knew it, and sure, Tech--well--who knew what was going on now with Tech, but Tech wasn't immune to good looks. Now, though, Dak just looked... sick. He was pale and trembling, he was sweating, and his eyes were closed too tightly for it to be real sleep he was experiencing. Tech leaned over the trucker's long body, trying not to disturb him too much, as he took the corner of--a beach towel?--wadded between Dak's body and the seat, and used it to wipe the sweat from his face. Their chests touched briefly, which made Tech's heart race, and Dak grunted softly, his cat eyes opening, blinking slowly at Tech with a brief look of confusion as everything about his world seemed to settle into place.

"Tech?" he asked softly, like he needed the verbal confirmation to be sure.

"I'm here, Dak," Tech said carefully. "Do you need some water?"

"Where's Pox?"

Tech bit the inside of his cheek before answering. "She's asleep in the back. It's my turn to take care of you, okay? Do you need water?" He had no real idea if they had any water, but that was another issue. Mostly he wanted to let Dak know he was there, that Dak was--well, as safe as a rogue trucker could be trapped on the road with no help in sight and no real way of getting out of there.

Dak nodded, but Tech wasn't sure it was about the water. His eyes looked glazed--they were red-rimmed now, and watery, like he needed to close them for a long while but kept insisting on keeping them open. "Are you okay?" he asked softly, and Tech laughed--it wasn't funny, and the laugh was biting, harsh in his throat.

"Dak, I'm not the one who hasn't gotten enough sleep in god knows how long, and who is cycling between exhaustion and your body just flooding with adrenaline. Do you need water?"

Dak paused, as if thinking, and the pause dragged on, the cabin filling instead with the muffled noises of the outside. "Z?" he asked finally.

"I'm Tech," Tech sighed, shaking his head. "It's okay, Dak. Z's okay. I'm gonna see if there's a bottle of water somewhere."

"Third compartment on the left hand side," Dak said almost automatically. "And there's Dak fuel in there too."

Tech's heart began to race at the mention of Dak Fuel, but he steeled himself. Now really wasn't the time, and there was no way giving Dak Dak Fuel would do anything but kill him. Water. He needed to get Dak water.

He fumbled around for a bit, making maybe more noise than he was supposed to as the person on watch, but it felt good to make the noise, felt almost normal. It blocked out the sound of silent sleeping from the back seat and Dak's rough breathing in the front. The water that the compartment produced--he hoped to god it was the water, every other bottle in there was labeled "Dak Fuel" in messy, craggy handwriting in ballpoint pen on the remains of a water bottle wrapper--was half empty but there, and he closed the compartment and shook out his hands, sending the water sloshing around the bottle.

"Okay, Dak," he said, climbing back as best he could. "You can't--how is the shaking? Can you hold the bottle?" Dak silently raised a trembling hand, and Tech nodded. "Okay," he repeated. "I'm gonna--gimme a second. I'm gonna move some of these towels and try to prop you up from behind, okay? It'll be okay." Dak's eyes were closed tightly, and Tech chewed at his lip as he carefully rested the water bottle on Xanadu's dashboard, then began to move the towels and sheets and ratty blankets from behind Dak's head, just letting them drop into the footwell. He climbed into the empty space that the towels had left, carefully shifting Dak's body so he could put his leg between Dak and the seat backs, and letting his other leg follow the line of Dak's body in a slight diagonal across the seats. He bent over and lifted Dak up enough so that the trucker's head was cradled against Tech's neck, and then reached down to Dak's belt loops. He heaved, and dragged Dak's body against his until the trucker was propped up against Tech's chest, his head lolling over Tech's shoulder as the shaking started to take full control of his body. "Shh, shh, shh," Tech whispered, his hands leaving Dak's belt loops to rub up and down Dak's shaking arms and sides. "You're okay, you're okay. You're here with Squirt, you're okay."

Another wave of exhaustion hit Tech--not physical sleepiness, because he had been allowed to sleep for however long it had been--what, five, six hours? But he had done this all day and it was so much. It was so much to watch Dak reduced to a shaking mess who couldn't stay upright, or hold a gun, or even drive the truck that was like another part of his body. Tech buried his face in Dak's mullet, breathing in the other man's smell of sweat and grease, his hands continuing to rub circles against Dak's sides and arms. "It's okay. It's okay. You're safe," he whispered. "You're safe, come on, just breathe, you're okay." He counted his own heartbeat's sounds in his ears, the number of times he went up and down Dak's arms, the lessening violent shakes where Dak's head jerked and crashed with his own head. He counted his own breaths as he tried to inhale and exhale evenly, like it was going to keep Dak level, or at least maybe help when the shaking stopped. And finally Dak was still, and Tech could hear how loud and uneven and ragged his own breathing was, when he thought it was so smooth and regular.

His own hands were shaking now--the adrenaline of Dak's vulnerability coursing through his veins, the terror as he watched this man who he looked up to so much, who he loved, be reduced to a shaking mess throwing his entire system out of whack. But Dak needed some water, so he shook his hands out again as Dak slumped against his chest, and reached out for the water bottle, unscrewing the cap and leaving it on the dashboard so he could recap it later, if Dak didn't drink it all at once. "Here, Dak," he said aloud, shifting Dak's body so the trucker's face was no longer pressed against his neck but instead faced outward so Tech could better place the bottle at his lips. "You need water. You haven't had anything all day, you need some. Come on," he coaxed, and Dak's eyes peeled open. It was getting lighter in the cabin, for which Tech was grateful, even as he knew it meant they were approaching morning and still didn't have any help. Dak blinked, and looked up into Tech's face.

"Max?" he whispered, and Tech felt his heart drop in his chest. The water bottle crunched a little in his hand where he squeezed it too hard, and he loosened his grip a little.

"Max is in Denver," he said slowly, hoping to god he was doing this right because Jesus, was the adrenaline--or the thrashing--affecting Dak's memory? He had a brief stab of panic about the idea that Dak had some kind of brain hemorrhage, that Dak was slowly bleeding out alongside the dumps of adrenaline or whatever it was that was happening, but that--they couldn't do anything about that. If Dak was going to die, he was going to die tonight, before they could get help, and Tech's throat was suddenly full and his eyes were blurry with tears, but he pressed on, trying to talk just to give Dak something to focus on. "Max's safe, he's okay," Tech said, and it wasn't a lie, maybe, though safe was... complicated. But for all Tech knew, sure, Max was safe and okay. "We--he had to leave, for a little while, but he's okay. He'll be back." All things Tech didn't know, couldn't actually promise, but he could see in the lightening dark Dak's eyes staring blankly up at the loft where Max used to be, and he couldn't--Dak deserved one good thing in his life, and if Tech couldn't be it, if Shirley couldn't be it, if Max couldn't be it consistently, maybe the dream that Max was okay in Denver and would be back could be it. Just for now, just for a while.

"Come on, Dak, you need to drink some water, you haven't  had anything to drink for way too long," Tech carefully propped up Dak's head against his shoulder, his spine straightening so he could hold Dak up properly and put the flimsy plastic bottle against Dak's lips, tilting it so the water would come, but not too fast, he couldn't have Dak choking, he'd spill all their water then and Dak would choke and who knew if that would impact the adrenaline modulator and maybe it would make the hemorrhage worse and Dak would die there in Tech's arms, which was Tech's worst nightmare exactly and something he dreamed about again and again and again, Dak dying in his arms and asking for someone else, Dak dying in his arms and leaving him all alone with no one to look to for help, Dak dying in his arms just like his parents died and he'd be all alone again.

"You crying?" Dak's voice seemed to come from far away, but his hand came up to cradle Tech's face, his fingers running through Tech's beard in small circles. "Tech? Squirt? Are you okay?"

"I'm--not--" Tech tried to stutter out any words, but found himself pressing his face back against Dak's hand just to feel it, and squeezed his eyes shut.

"You are crying," Dak said simply, using his thumb to brush over the tear tracks on Tech's cheeks. "It's okay, buddy. You're okay."

"You're okay," Tech insisted, blubbering now, his voice choking in his throat and twisting in his chest. "Dak you gotta drink some water, and then you gotta get some sleep, okay? You gotta. We--I--we need you, okay? I- I need you."

"You got me, baby boy, you got me. I'm right here. It's okay. I'm just--" Tech felt Dak's fingers spasm against his temple, could practically feel Dak's teeth clench down in a wince in his sternum. "I'm okay," he repeated, but this time through clenched teeth, and Tech could feel it all slipping away. He put the water bottle back on the dashboard and shook his head, wrapping his arms around Dak's body and dragging him in close.

"It's okay Dak, it's okay, come on, you're okay," he soothed as the shaking started in earnest. "You're okay, we just gotta get through this, you're gonna get through this, you gotta get through this, come on, you're okay." He pictured Dak suddenly going limp, his last breath ghosting past Tech's ear, pictured Dak's skin going from pale to gray, pictured his parents, his Nana, pictured Z's face stiff and guarded but cracking, pictured Pox crying and blaming herself, pictured being alone again with no one left to love him, and he cried and cried as Dak shook in his arms, but cried silently, trying to hold it in and hold onto Dak at the same time, but it was all slipping through his fingers, everything they'd been through together was fading away, Dak fading away, and he couldn't handle it and he didn't want to handle it because he needed Dak to be okay, just needed Dak to be okay enough to take care of him--

Suddenly, over the horizon, Tech could see headlights--40, 35 yards ahead. Headlights. Help. Or danger, but he couldn't just sit there while it was possibly help. Scrambling, he knocked Dak's shaking body against the steering wheel in his attempt to turn and open the truck door, and he ended up falling head first towards the pavement.  The skin on his palms burned as the friction of falling to the road rubbed the first layer off, but Tech barely felt it as he rose to his feet as quickly as his robes would let him, stumbling blindly out into the road and waving his hands over his head as a signal to the vehicle hurtling his way. "Hey!" he hollered, his voice hoarse and frankly hard to hear over the sound of the road against tire, but his physical presence seemed to have the effect he wanted, as the person in the truck slowed down--it was a truck, not a truck like Xanadu, not a semi-truck, but a regular pickup truck, worn down, the red paint faded and scratched. The person slowed to a stop in front of Tech's body, and Tech lowered his hands from above his head to holding them out in front of him.

"Please don't go, please, we need help," he babbled, edging his way from the front of the truck over to the side, hoping against hope they wouldn't just hit the gas and zoom out of there. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, we just need help and you're the first person we've seen for hours."

"Tech, what the hell are you doing?" came Z's voice, maybe still groggy with sleep and not as sharp as it might otherwise have been, but Tech paled, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder.

"Please," he said again to the driver. "Please, my friend, he's--something's wrong with my friend, he's hurt, I don't know, he just needs help and our truck is uh. Our truck won't start? And he got hit on the head and he won't stop shaking, please, we need help, we just need to get somewhere where he can get some help, please."

Tech could see the driver of the truck more clearly as he edged away from the front and towards the driver's side door, with the window rolled down and her arm resting against the frame. It was a woman, maybe, a really tough looking one, her hair cropped close to her head, and wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and her mouth and starting to develop in her forehead and between her eyebrows. She looked tired, her eyes sort of puffy, but she didn't charge off the minute Tech was no longer in front of her, and she regarded him sort of slowly and calmly.

"Your friend bleeding?" she asked, her voice measured but with a push of authority that made Tech want to do anything he could to make her job easier--whatever that job was, Tech didn't know, but he practically scrambled over his own words to respond to her.

"No, no, he just, sometimes he shakes, starts small and escalates but I can hold him, I can hold him down if you'll take us somewhere to get him help."

"How long ago was he hit?" The woman in the truck turned the keys in the ignition and the truck went still, and Tech's heart skipped a beat practically in shock before he could find the words to answer--but then, from behind him, Pox answered first.

"Uh I dunno--a few days ago, I guess," she said. "But he started shaking this--well, yesterday morning."

"You time the seizures?" the woman stepped out of the truck, leaning down before she got fully out to hit some kind of button or lever.

"Uh, no, um, we didn't think to do--"

"Between a minute and a minute and a half," Z said, and Tech did look back now, and saw Z, who looked more tired than Tech had ever seen him, maybe, and Pox with her hair all over the place, both looking out from the truck, their bodies between Dak's and the woman's gaze like they could maybe protect him from something now if it went south. But the woman wasn't moving toward Xanadu, she was going around to the back of her own truck, and was met halfway by some kind of tiny RC car, orange and veering towards the woman, then driving in circles around the woman's feet as she walked. Tech had to find out who was driving it with such expertise and ease, because it really did seem to move almost with a mind of its own between the woman's strides. The woman made a shushing sound, though at who, Tech couldn't see, and opened up the bed of the truck and started digging around under a tarp.

Tech moved from foot to foot nervously, not sure what to do now. He kept glancing back at Z and Pox, who stared out silently at the whole scene. It felt like a tableau of some kind, like they had been posed there, just looking wearily out at the scene, like they had finally resigned themselves to the idea that this was Dak's last hope.

The woman was quick and efficient, coming back around from the back of her truck, the RC car zipping merrily alongside her. Her arms were full of some kind of tool box--no, a first aid kit in a hard plastic box, Tech could see the sign of the International Street Doctors painted crudely across the top.

"You're a street doc?" he asked in shock, and the woman shook her head, pushing past him.

"Not really," she responded as Tech scrambled to turn around and walk with her. Her pace was measured, and the RC car kept veering between the two of them, keeping some kind of perimeter between Tech and the woman. "Miz Biz and I run supplies, usually, but sometimes you go to deliver supplies where there's no doc, and you gotta do something fast. You pick things up." They reached the truck, but Pox and Z didn't move out of the way, their small bodies still crowding the driver's side door to protect Dak.

"Can you really help him, then?" Pox asked softly, her eyes not meeting anyone else's eyes, just staring fully at the orange plastic box in the woman's fist.

"Well we won't see if I can at all if you don't move," the woman responded back flatly. "Or better yet, if you can haul your friend out here. It's tight quarters in there, and if he's seizing I'd rather have more space to back off and wait it out." For a moment, there was a standoff; Pox slunk back, but Z stayed exactly where he was, almost glaring at the woman, his face steely.

"Z, come on," Pox grabbed Z's sleeve and pulled slightly. Z's gaze moved from the woman's face to Tech's, and Tech tried to look both apologetic and desperate.

"Sorry, Z," he apologized quietly, though he wasn't sure what moved him to do so. "I got scared. He needs help, and maybe she can give it." The woman said nothing, just waited, the first aid kit in her arms, staring levelly back at Z.

"Zenith, what the hell," came Dak's voice from the truck. "You know street docs, don't you know this one? She hasn't killed you all yet." Tech noticed the woman's arms tense around the first aid kit, but she otherwise didn't respond, as Z seemed to snap out of his reverie and turn to say something Tech couldn't quite hear to Dak. The tension seemed to break, though, as it sometimes did when Dak cut in, and soon Z and Pox were hauling Dak out of the truck, lowering him as gently as they could to the ground. Once he was settled, the trucker raised his head from the ground, squinting in the morning light at the woman, and gave a small, very trembling wave. "I'm Daaaaaaaak Rambo," he announced, and for a moment Tech could ignore how rough his voice sounded and pretend everything was just alright again. "Didn't catch your name, ma'am."

Instead of responding, the woman turned on Tech. "He's been seizing and unconscious and now he's awake?"

"He was never unconscious," Z responded. "He's got an adrenaline modulator."

"He hit his head," Tech and Pox said at the same time.

"And the hit fucked with the modulator," the woman finished. "Jesus Christ. This might be a little more complicated than I thought. Come on, Miz Biz, we gotta go back to the truck and get some stuff to hook you in." The RC car, which had been still and quiet the entire time, chirped and veered around to zoom back to the truck. Dak watched her go, and whistled lowly.

"That's a woman who's seen the road," he said admiringly.

"I can hear you," the woman responded over her shoulder, though she didn't seem too upset by what Dak had said.

"And I could hear you the whole time you all were talking about me like I wasn't right here," Dak shot back, "so we're even. And I still don't have your name, so really, we're not even at all."

The woman didn't respond to that, just went back to the truck and spent some more time digging around, hauling out all kinds of equipment before moving back, her arms even more full than before. She put the tools down carefully next to Dak, then extended her hand. "I'm Al," she said. "Nice to meet you, Dak Rambo.” They shook hands before she went back to being professional and brusque. “Now I need you to lay back. You other three, hold him down just in case. We're gonna see if we can't make you still for a little while while I get Miz here to fix that modulator. I have your permission to touch you, and help you?"

"Ma'am, you have permission to touch me as much as you want," Dak quipped, and the woman--Al--rolled her eyes.

"I don't go for your type," she told him gruffly, and Dak shrugged with a sly smile on his face.

"You wouldn't be the first woman to say that," he acknowledged, but laid off the flirting, closing his eyes and doing his best to relax his still-twitching muscles.

From one of the boxes she had hauled out of the truck, Al produced some kind of IV, and a few bags of clear liquids. "You," she pointed to Zenith. "I need you to hold these at least until we get a flow going. And you two, I need you to hold him down just in case." The rest of the NeoScum all nodded, and moved into position. "Dak, I'm going to insert the IV in the back of your hand. You're going to feel a little prick, and then it shouldn't hurt. If it burns or is extremely painful, you tell me, okay?"

"Wouldn't be the first time I felt a little prick," Dak said, his voice sounding like it came from afar. Al rolled her eyes again, glancing up at Tech.

"Is he always like this?" she asked before going to work, sliding the needle into the top of Dak's hand.

"Pretty much always," Tech responded, watching with fascination as the needle slipped under Dak's skin, until he felt suddenly sick and refocused on putting careful pressure on Dak's hips to keep him grounded and hold him down if necessary.

"Okay, we should be in. Dak, this is some fluids and a muscle relaxant. I need you to be awake for this, because I trust Miz, but if there's blood or other stuff that makes it harder for them to find the modulator and fix you up, we gotta know if something goes wrong, make sense? You know what model you're working with?"

Dak blinked up at Al almost blankly, then shook his head. "It was a long time ago," he offered as excuse, and Al's face didn't change at all, didn't even flicker, as she nodded, then carefully took a set of hair clippers and held it up for Dak to see.

"You've got some great hair," she told him, "but I have to get rid of part of it so we can get Miz in there. Is that okay?" Dak nodded, but Tech couldn't look at all as the clippers went to Dak's hair. Instead he glanced over at Pox, who was pressing down on Dak's chest, staring blankly at the shirt under his vest. She looked like she was almost completely somewhere else, like her brain had left her body entirely, and Tech paused for a moment to reach out and brush his hand over hers before withdrawing. She glanced up at him, her eyes rimmed with red--from exhaustion, tears, who knew at this point--and she tried to smile but it looked more like a sad grimace. He did his best to grimace back at her, then lowered his head and focused on putting careful pressuring on Dak's hips.

He heard the drill--just a quick one-two, a test of its power, and he was almost sick, his arms going to jelly. He heard Al narrating to Dak, telegraphing her moves before she made them, but instead he lowered his head to Dak's belly and focused on the warmth, the scent of Dak's sweat, doing his best to drown out all the sounds that were going on around Dak's head. He thought vaguely of Zenith, hoped the decker was looking away but also knew he was probably recording the entire thing in case something like this happened again, in case he had to be the one to do this. Tech bit his lip and closed his eyes, trying to disappear but still hold Dak down. He wondered faintly if it was something he could have fixed with magic, but that draw to full awareness just brought with it the soft whirr of something--the drill again?--and he squeezed his eyes shut even tighter.

The softness of Dak's belly, the rise and fall and the occasional rumble through it as Dak responded to Al, was almost soothing to Tech, and he could pretend for a moment they were anywhere else, in Dak's shoddy excuse for an apartment in Chicago, in the trailer of Xanadu after a gig, anywhere except in the woods in the middle of nowhere, with Dak fully incapacitated and all of their hope resting on the random kindness of a stranger, in a world that had shown them time and time again that strangers did not have kindness without repayment, sometimes brutal repayment, and that if there was kindness they would just abandon you soon after. They were anywhere else, in the cabin of Xanadu, Dak humming softly while the rest of the NeoScum dozed, somewhere far away from here, getting closer and closer and closer to Los Angeles, where they would sunbathe and swim and eat good food and just lay low for a while, where they wouldn't have to be looking over their shoulders every half second, where everything would be alright. Tech gave Dak's hips a slight squeeze, and he almost kissed Dak's belly through the thin and ragged shirt he was wearing, but instead he felt a hand--Dak's hand, from the weight and the breadth of the palm--reach up and touch Tech's head, carding his fingers softly through Tech's hair. He could almost hear Dak call out to him, once, twice, then another hand--no, it was a shoulder, Pox's shoulder digging into his side.

"Tech," she said. "Tech did you faint? It's over. We have to move Dak now." Tech lifted his head and saw the exhausted-but-sparkling eyes of Dak Rambo, grinning at him over the length of Dak's body.

"You fall asleep there, Tech buddy?" he asked, and Tech's eyes filled with tears. He was so overwhelmed he lowered his head to Dak's stomach and did kiss it softly, once, before wiping his eyes against the shirt and finally lifting himself off of Dak's body.

Z and Al were off by Al's truck, Al loading her gear back into the trunk while Z talked at her insistently--about what, Tech couldn't tell, some high price she was demanding, maybe, or something else, but honestly Tech would have given his entire life, would have been Al's slave in exchange for Dak being okay again. He thought briefly of offering that, but Pox tapped his arm again, and he turned instead to help her haul Dak's body carefully back into the truck.

They laid him across the backseat, Pox taking care to adjust blankets around him and try to protect his bandaged head as much as she could. Tech heard the engine of Al’s truck roar to life, and he clambered back over to look out as she rolled out, Z still standing in the middle of the road watching her go. The sun was rising in their eyes as she drove away, headed east, it  looked like, to who knew where.

Z came back to the truck slowly--or maybe, after the chaos of the previous day and last night, it all just felt slow, and Z was moving normally. He looked as exhausted as Tech felt, though, dark circles etched deep under both eyes as he blinked up at Tech.

“She said that he’d need to rest for two or three hours, but then it should kick back into gear like nothing happened.” Tech nodded slowly, absorbing that information.

“She left,” he responded slowly. “Did you- how did you pay her?”

“I didn’t.” Z blinked again, his shoulders slumping, and Tech realized for a moment just how young Z looked--and how young Z _was_. “She refused payment. I--I dunno. I tried, I offered whatever I could think of, but she didn’t… she wouldn’t. I don’t know.”

Tech nodded again.

"I didn't know there were people who really did that," Z continued, turning to look over his shoulder at the road, though Al's truck was long gone.

"Performed road-side brain surgery?"

"Helped people without payment. Like even most street docs--you have to pay for the equipment, right? Like with Max--" he cut himself off, turned to look nervously into the truck like Dak could hear them. "Anyway. We should--I don't know. We _all_  need to sleep, but I don't know how we're supposed to do that--I guess I can stay awake a little longer, until Dak's ready to go. She said not to drive with him unconscious, in case the movement of the truck jostles his brain up too much. So I suppose we just... wait." Z rubbed his eyes.

"Maybe--we could all sleep," Tech suggested quietly. "It's just a few hours. If we lock the truck up and lay in the back, people will just think it's a locked, abandoned truck. Besides, Al was the first vehicle we saw all night. I don't think people are like. Roaring through this area right now."

Z looked dubiously at Tech, then looked back over his shoulder at the road. "We can see," he said simply, then looked towards Tech, who moved to climb back through the cabin, making room for Zenith to follow him. Z climbed across the stained white leather seats, hitting the autolock on the way in, so the locks thudded dully in the relative quiet of the cabin. Dak was stretched carefully across the back, and Pox was curled up between his head and the door, her head resting between his shoulder and the back of the seat. She didn't seem to respond to the sound, and Tech sighed softly before pulling one of the stained sheets from their place on the floor and draping it gently over her frame. Z moved to the far end of the bench, near Dak's feet, sitting upright but gently letting his eyes close.

"You want a blanket?" Tech whispered, but Z seemed to have already passed out, so Tech shrugged and carefully arranged one of the cleaner blankets over his form, pulling it up to Z's chin before it fell down to about his midsection, the blanket catching on his arm.

Tech surveyed the scene. The bench was full, and his eyes were burning, but he didn't want to move away from them, didn't want to go up to the mini loft--it was Max's, mostly, and also he wanted to be close. He looked at Dak's still form, the trucker's feet essentially in Z's lap, and then shrugged to himself, climbing carefully on top of Dak, settling his body between Dak's legs and letting his head rest against Dak's chest. He wasn't sure how long this was going to hold--it felt precarious as hell, and also potentially dangerous, maybe--but damned if he was going to move now.

He was drifting and maybe slipping off a little when he felt the cool touch of Zenith's hand against his calf, pulling his legs closer to the decker's body to keep him in place, and before he fell asleep entirely, he could feel a hand--too small to be Dak's--curl gently in his hair, scratching the top of his head gently once or twice before stopping.

The sun rose higher in the sky above Xanadu, and the quiet of the road settled around them, the NeoScum logo on their truck glinting faintly as the occupants inside dozed.


End file.
